Sunday, May 29, 2016

Where land meets sea, Alaska's wolves sometimes eat otters

By
Sarah Keartes

May 29 2016

Katmai National Park is one of
the most pristine wildlife preserves in North America. Located along
Alaska's Pacific coast, it's home to over 1,000 different species – and amidst all that biodiversity, you'll sometimes find unusual relationships between predator and prey.

Image: National Park Service/used with permission

For ranger Kaitlyn Kunce, one such discovery came during a recent marine debris survey in
the park, when she and her co-workers stumbled across a grey wolf
carrying its catch – and the meal choice was one they'd never
encountered before. Clutched between the wolf's jaws was a young sea
otter pup.

"The wolf travelled along the beach carrying the otter far from the
water line. It passed by us, took one glance back, then continued on," recalls Kunce.
"A predator of the land with a predator of the sea. Little is known
about the relationship between wolves and otters, but we saw a small
glimpse of it."

We've long recognised that the wolf population of the Pacific Northwest region
has a unique relationship with the ocean. Each summer, Katmai’s waters
fill with salmon returning from the ocean to spawn, and for the
local canids, it's a seafood snack that's just a dive away. Herring eggs
are also a common rotation at mealtime.

But for Kunce, seeing an otter-eating wolf was something new.

Image: National Park Service/used with permission

Over the past several years, anecdotal reports and scat evidence of
wolf-otter predations have left scientists with more questions than
answers. Were they actively hunting, or simply scavenging the occasional
washed-up carcass? In the case of Kunce's sighting, the wolf's underfur
was wet to the shoulders, indicating that the animal had at least
ventured into the shallows to retrieve its unusual meal.

Sea otters typically inhabit coastal waters where their favourite
foods – invertebrates like abalone and urchins – are most plentiful, but
they do occasionally come ashore to rest. Pups stay with their mothers
for nearly a full year, and female otters will often aggressively defend
their young in the face of danger.

It's possible that this young pup was sick or injured, or perhaps it
had become separated from its mother before the wolf found it.

When it comes to salmon, however, we know that the wolves are not
simply scavenging fish carcasses. Alaska Fish and Game biologist Dave Person has been monitoring packs catching, killing and eating salmon in the area over the past five years.
"They’re not as skilful as bears at fishing,” he says. "Most of the
fishing takes place when the tide is low, on the flats where streams are
crossing through the intertidal zone."

The otter-eating encounter might be unusual, but it's also an
encouraging sign. Until ten years ago, spotting an Alaskan wolf in the
wild was an extraordinarily difficult feat, so the presence of active
wolves here is a great testament to the overall health of the Katmai
ecosystem.

Early in the last century, Alaska's wolves were hunted with
virtually no controls, and bounties were commonplace. Well into the
1970s, misguided control policies aimed at increasing game
populations took a heavy toll. Trapping, poisoning and aerial gunning
hobbled the region's largest packs, and it took some thirty years for
these predators to bounce back.

Today, wolf and other top-predator control measures continue to be a
heavily debated topic in the state, but thanks to a strong focus on
reducing conflicts with farmers and hunters, Alaska is now one of the
largest wolf strongholds in the US. Estimates put the population at
7,000 to 12,000, and park officials are determined to keep it that way.

The National Park Service has set up a system of remote cameras
throughout Katmai in the hope of learning more about predator-prey
interactions like this one. "This isn’t the only relationship between
terrestrial and marine wildlife we don’t know enough about," explains Kunce, adding that evidence suggests local bears could also be preying on marine mammals.

"Maybe we will see a bear catch an otter or seal," she says. "Maybe
we will see more, maybe a wolf catching an otter, or maybe another
first."

You can follow along with the project and its discoveries on the NPS Changing Tides website.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone